


Rage

by Aluxra



Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Comfort/Angst, M/M, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-29 03:42:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11432439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aluxra/pseuds/Aluxra
Summary: Logan's always angry and he doesn't know what to do with it





	Rage

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where I was going with this, so this was all I ended up posting.
> 
> [Original Posted:](http://aluxra.tumblr.com/post/151902457142/rage) Oct 16th, 2016

The rage was too big for his body.

It weighed heavier than the metal fused to his bones; stretched tighter than his skin, pulling at the seams but never splitting open. It scoured his veins like rust, infection in his lungs; a constant source of pain that his healing could not erase. It pressed against the edges of his mind, sharp pinpoints digging into his brain that made his fists curl by his side, his teeth grinding the remnants of cigar stubs into nothing, his eyes squeezed shut to block out a world that fuelled the raging beast that grew inside him with every waking moment.

Violence was the only relief when it grew too big, a sudden, wild eruption of bloodlust that offered a temporary reprieve and shrank the rage down, made it manageable to leave him clearheaded to deal with the aftermath. Dealing with the aftermath meant whiskey and bourbon and beer; anything strong enough to outrun his healing factor for a few hours so he  _didn’t_  have to deal with it. Bar fights and street brawls and cage matches skimmed an extra edge off for a little while, but whatever peace and quiet others found at the bottom of a bottle or in bloodied fists and bruised faces, it eluded him. Even when his circumstances changed, when things got “better”, the rage remained; more so than anything that might once have been of the man known as James “Logan” Howlett and any semblance of the man lost forever to the animal that walked in human skin.

Yet he stayed in a school full of children, accepted by others as if he wasn’t a time bomb waiting to go off. If they thought being around others like himself would soothe him, they were wrong; if they thought giving him responsibility over their education would distract him, they were wrong. If they thought offering him a cage – for all its sprawling grounds and open hallways and bright rooms - to call home would bring him some sort of peace, they were wrong.

Animals like him weren’t meant for peace.

He rolled his cigar between his fingers, his gaze flicking down to the knuckles of the hand holding it, the dips between each of them unmarked by scars that should split the skin in deep fissures from how often the adamantium claws sliced through them. He looked away, out through the partially open blinds to the gardens below the west lounge, squinting against the red-orange light of sunset creeping through the blinds. A glass of whiskey sat on the arm of the chair he occupied, half forgotten as he cast his eyes to the woods on the estate, hiding the fenced walls that bordered the sprawling property.

Maybe it had been easier before, when he had the rage but the not the memories of why he had it. When he had nothing but the name stamped on the dog tags hanging around his neck and the vague need to get  _away_ , without fully understanding what he was running from. When there had been nothing but the feral instinct to survive, to keep moving, avoid people all together if he could help it.

Now he couldn’t get away from them: they filled the halls and the rooms with chatter and shouting and laughing and yelling, complaining about homework and classes and missing this or that important weekend event because of curfew rules. They interrupted his time with questions and offers of company and advice and inane conversation.

He growled a sigh, rubbing his eyes with his free hand as he brought the cigar back to his lips. If he had had a plan for where his life would go, he had royally fucked it up.

He rolled his shoulders, reaching over one to rub the base of his neck, trying to rid himself of the phantom pain he felt. He couldn’t rid himself of the exhausting anger, least of all that which he felt towards himself; that, at least, was a reliable constant, even when he had nothing else, and still now, when he had… someone, somewhere, would probably describe what he had, was everything. A home he hadn’t asked for, people who he couldn’t rid himself of even if he tried, food and clothing and a warm bed, someone to share it with, and still the anger remained, an animal pacing in a too-small cage, waiting for the lock to snap and hell to break loose.

He huffed through the cloud of smoke hovering around him, tapping the cigar against the ashtray beside him when the door behind him clicked, and he cocked his head, tensing, the cigar paused half way to his lips as he looked over his shoulder to see who had entered.

Kurt smiled softly, and raised one hand in greeting, his other hand holding a six pack of beer. Logan relaxed, nodding his head in greeting and turned his gaze back to the window as Kurt padded over to the matching chair and slid into it, tucking his legs up underneath him and set the six pack on the floor, taking two from the packing.

‘Something wrong wi’ your “ _bamf_ ”ing, elf?’ Logan asked, swallowing the last of the whiskey and accepted the offered bottle in it’s place.

‘I did not wish to startle you, my friend,’ Kurt explained. ‘You have seemed… distant, lately. Troubling thoughts?’

Logan shrugged. ‘No more than usual.’

‘Do you wish to share them?’

A wry smile. ‘No more than usual.’

‘I apologise,’ Kurt said after a moment, beginning to stand. ‘I fear I have interrupted your peace and quiet.’

Logan waved him off, gesturing for him to remain seated. ‘The world could burn to the ground and everyone with it, an’ I still wouldn’t find any of that.’

He could feel Kurt’s golden eyes on him as he kept his gaze focused on the gardens beyond the window, swirling the beer gently around the bottle dangling from his fingertips. He huffed another sigh around his cigar, pulling it from his lips and knocking it against the ashtray. Cocking his head, he stared at Kurt out the corner of his eye.

‘What?’

‘You can always find peace,’ Kurt said. ‘You just have to know where to look.’

Logan snorted under his breath. ‘I sure ain’t finding it in the places you’re looking, elf. There’s nothing there for the likes of me,’ he said, flexing his fingers absent-mindedly.

‘I understand you feel that way, but that doesn’t mean it’s true,’ Kurt replied, rolling the bottle he held between his hands, following Logan’s gaze out the window. ‘God will always be there for all His children, even when they are not ready to accept Him; but I believe that with Him, you can find peace.’

Logan said nothing for a long moment, stubbing the last of his cigar into the ashtray. ‘I’m not meant for peace.’

‘I don’t believe that.’ Kurt’s bright yellow gaze pierced through him, and Logan took a long swig from his beer bottle, scratching his hand through his dark hair. The blades sheathed between his metacarpals pressed against the skin overlying them, shifting with the flexion and extension of his fingers; an itch he couldn’t scratch, a prickling under the skin he couldn’t rid from himself.

‘You don’t know enough to make that call,’ Logan said finally, shaking his head. ‘I don’t even know everything about what I’ve done, but I know enough to know, peace and I ain’t gonna be bed mates any time soon. If your God knows everything I’ve done and says different, then He’s soft.’

‘Perhaps it is you who is too harsh on yourself,’ Kurt replied. ‘I do not know everything you have gone through, or everything you’ve done, but I  _do_  know it is not soft to love unconditionally.’

Logan looked at him, as if seeing him for the first time.

‘Is that what you’re doing, elf?’ he asked.

‘I try.'

Logan sighed, taking a long draw of beer and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Yeah, well, you just keep doing that.’

‘I will.’

Logan stared at him, and Kurt met his gaze, a smile on his lips.

‘Of course I will,’ he said. ‘Even if such a time comes when it is no longer wanted.’

Logan sighed again, sliding further down his seat, guarding his beer with one hand and letting the other fall over the arm of the chair as he stared out the window. ‘What did I do to deserve you?’

He startled when he felt a warm, soft grip encircle his hand, and he looked out the corner of his eye down at their clasped hands, Kurt’s three digits loose and relaxed around Logan’s hand. His eyes travelled up to Kurt’s face, but Kurt had turned his eyes onto the grounds below them, his golden eyes hooded sleepily as he curled up on the seat.

Logan took another long gulp from his beer, and minutely tightened his grasp around Kurt’s hand, stroking his thumb softly over the velvet fur on the back of his hand; a tiny, intimate gesture in the silence between them. The hulking beast quietened in his chest, settling to some semblance of calm; it stopped pressing at the edges and prickling under his skin, the closest he’d feel to peace, as they watched the last of the golden orange light descend below the tree line on the horizon.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to visit me on [tumblr](http://aluxra.tumblr.com)


End file.
